A rescued pot-bellied pig named Molly got a new home. Her owners ate her

Molly, a 3-year-old pot-bellied pig, arrived at a British Columbia SPCA shelter in May emaciated after being rescued with 57 other pigs during an animal cruelty investigation. Shelter workers spent months nursing her back to health and finally sent her off to a new adoptive home on Vancouver Island in January.

Then her new owners cooked and ate her in February while posting photos of her meat being seasoned to Snapchat, reported The Cowichan Valley Citizen.

“It’s a nightmare,” Sandi Trent, manager of the Cowichan & District branch of the SPCA where Molly was nursed back to health, told the publication. “This is just devastating for us.”

News of the incident sparked outrage among animal lovers.

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“It takes a special type of person to adopt an animal from a rescue organization simply to take them home to kill them, and eat them,” wrote the RASTA Sanctuary on Facebook. The post noted the organization was involved in the investigation that led to Molly’s rescue.

It takes a special type of person to adopt an animal from a rescue organization simply to take them home to kill them,...

“Why wasn’t it returned, why didn’t they re-home it, why wasn’t there charges being pressed?” asked Brandee McKee, also a Vancouver Island resident, reported Global News. “That’s the sickening part of it all, that they’re getting away with it.”

But Lori Chortyk, general manager of community relations for the British Columbia SPCA, told Canadian Television News that the new owners had every legal right to kill and eat Molly, as long as it was done humanely.

“Because they were the legal owners of the animal after the adoption and it is not illegal in Canada to eat animals for food, we have no legal recourse to recommend any charges,” Chortyk said. The couple, who had signed a pledge saying they were not adopting Molly for food, has been banned from adopting animals at SPCA shelters in British Columbia, but that’s all the organization can do, Chortyk told Canadian Television News.

On Saturday, a Facebook poster using the name Austin Manson Forget posted an apology, since removed, identifying himself as Molly’s former owner and apologizing for eating her, Global News reported.

“I promise that I did not adopt Molly with the intention of killing her, it was only when she became aggressive with my partners dog and had tried breaking through our glass door that I made the decision to have her put down,” the now-deleted post read, reported Global News. “... I realize that what I did was wrong, and I cannot fix it, I can only continue to apologize.”